9. It's not going well

"The sustainable communities grants, and even the TIGER funding, pale in comparison to the money that continues to prop up the suburbs, however. Federal highways, to take an obvious example, scarf down more than $40 billion annually. “There’s a huge amount of federal resources going directly into financing real estate — and we’re not even talking about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” says Preuss. “TIGER and sustainable communities grants are peanuts.”

The article goes on to describe how much of what he has tried to accomplish is being undone by the current congress.

And the bottom line is that this is the kind of basic effort one expects from a democratic president. This really isn't "compensation" for not prosecuting torturers, expanding wars, keeping Bush's Sec Def, and promoting mandates after killing off the public option.

There is such a thing as "minimum expectations" and coordinating inner city recovery agendas is on the list.